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Blog: 2012

Any Scrum teams primary objective is to deliver potentially releasable software at regular intervals. The key here is potentially releasable, NOT released. A release costs time and costs money. If we don’t need to do it, then we shouldn’t. Not needn’t, shouldn’t! Conversely, when we need to release, we should be able to.

Take a look at the following
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

You should recognise them as three of the principles behind the agile manifesto and key to the success of any Agile project.

In my prevous post on this, I mentioned a few reasons why using avatars is important, both in Scrum terms as well as in helping build and meld the team.
One of the many problems a Scrum team has, especially new teams, is irregular burnup across the iteration. It is also not uncommon to see a very slow burnup (almost flatlined) across the iteration and then a steep burnup curve during the lsat few days. This is exactly not what we want, burnup like this puts undue pressure on everbody.
What you then find is:

There is some controversy about this.
One view is that it is a misused phrase used to describe the planning that occurs prior to the first sprint, another is that it is that work that is needed prior to initiating development work, still others claim that this pre-work part of the project charter.

For a team new to agile, and a lot that aren’t, you need some space between the project charter, all the budget work and goals and vision nonsense to do some work before the start of development and all hands on deck. This is what most people refer to as iteration 0.

There is some controversy about this.
One view is that it is a misused phrase used to describe the planning that occurs prior to the first sprint, another is that it is that work that is needed prior to initiating development work, still others claim that this pre-work part of the project charter.

For a team new to agile, and a lot that aren’t, you need some space between the project charter, all the budget work and goals and vision nonsense to do some work before the start of development and all hands on deck. This is what most people refer to as iteration 0.

Before we even get near this, you really have to be using a physical visible story board. Especially for a new team. Here are a few reasons why (expect more detail in will come up again in a later blog)

It is unfortunate that this is all too often the perception of Agile methods, at least initially, in an organisation. What it does highlight though is that unless there is an organisational change in thinking and culture, you are forever going to have problems and be fighting a losing battle. Agile needs to be accepted and understood across the entire organisation including management.